actually my wife. one day she was web surfing and she came across an article about autism in adults in 2013. and she started thinking, that does very much look like my husband. lars, i m going to do something i never, never usually do. isabel, your wife, she s next to you, isn t she? yeah. can i have a quick word with her? well, yes, by all means. yeah, come on in, isabel. hi, isabel. hello. hello, isabel. lovely to have you and to see you. thank you. let me just ask you this. so you were doing this internet search and then you sort of put the pieces together. but isabel, did you have any
thoughts prior to finding that online site, that maybe there was something different about lars? i had always known that there was something different about lars, but i couldn t quite put my finger on it. when we first started dating, i used to think that my boyfriend was quirky. but, you know, ithought, well, there are lots of people that are quirky out there and maybe myself quirky. but as the years went by, i started to really realise that there was something different. and so when i came across that article, i was actually shocked to see that most of what they were talking about fitted with the behaviour that lars had been showing and just briefly, when you saw that article and you started reading, i guess, you know, diagnoses of autism, did the light bulb sort of come on? oh, yes, absolutely. yes. it was like reading about lars. and at the end of that article, they took you to a link and it said, do this test.
about autistic people that are true. we are good at seeing patterns and picking out anomalies. also, coming from a neurodiverse perspective, i can sometimes look at problems in a different way, but what am i good at? yeah, working hard and being very loyal and one thing is that i have, i have quite a developed empathy, that is another erratic stereotype of autistic people. that we don t have empathy. it s actually, quite often, it s quite the opposite. we have overdeveloped empathy. we don t have a filter. we can t filter out all the emotions around us. and that causes a bit of stress, actually. lars, what would you say to other neurodivergent people about going into the workplace? the advice i have, it sounds sort of in general, but i think we have to remember that
it that you excel at? problem solving. there are a couple of things. i mean, there are some stereotypes about autistic people that are true. we are good at seeing patterns and picking out anomalies. also, coming from a neurodiverse perspective, i can sometimes look at problems in a different way, but what am i good at? yeah, working hard and being very loyal and one thing is that i have, i have quite a developed empathy, that is another erratic stereotype of autistic people. that we don t have empathy. it s actually, quite often, it s quite the opposite. we have overdeveloped empathy. we don t have a filter. we can t filter out all the emotions around us. and that causes a bit of stress, actually. lars, what would you say
lars backstrom, i can t tell you how much we appreciate you sharing your story, and isabel, sharing your story with us. look, good luck with everything. and i really appreciate your time. 0k. lars was placed in his job through a company called auti con. it s an international information technology firm that exclusively employs autistic adults as it consultants. they have more than 400 autistic employees. in fact, it is the largest neurodiverse majority company in the world. kurt schoffer, a real pleasure having you on the show. and kurt, iwant to start with this. what are the benefits to business for a neuro inclusive workforce now? that s a very interesting one. thanks for asking that question. so basically, the most important one that came out of the study is there is a greater level of innovation. you have people who think different, who act different, and who bring a totally new level of thought process into the solutions.